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Farina
An investment is made at 12.5% annual simple interest. The number of years it will take for the cumulative value
of the interest to equal the original investment is

(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8
Farina, I did not know you were posting your own questions now. Thank you for sharing. As for this one, since the problem mentions simple annual interest, we are really just looking for how many times 12.5 fits into 100: per cent means for each hundred, and we know that the investment will keep earning 12.5 percent of the principal per year. I would not--I did not--even bother with an algebraic framework. Rather, I looked at the question as a multiplication problem and reinterpreted it: Which of the following, when multiplied by 12.5, yields a product of 100?

\((12*8)+(0.5*8)\)

\((96)+(4)\)

\(100\)

The answer is (E). I prefer to split my multiplication of decimals and other types of numbers just to keep from having to write anything down sometimes. It often proves to be a timesaver, and this one was no exception.

Thank you again for sharing.

- Andrew

Hey Andrew, it is not my own question, it is from Manhattan 5 LB Book of GRE. Since this name was not mentioned in the tags (only Manhattan GMAT is there) so I selected "other source".
Thank you for explanation, I calculated like this too, I just didn't split the numbers though, that's a good trick, thanks a lot
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Can someone explain this, please?
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Can someone explain this, please?
Hello, sofiase93. I would be happy to help you figure out this problem, but have you read the two approaches outlined above? If calculating simple interest is not something you are comfortable doing, then I would suggest you check out the theory in this post within the Ultimate GMAT Quant Megathread.

Happy reading.

- Andrew
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Farina
An investment is made at 12.5% annual simple interest. The number of years it will take for the cumulative value
of the interest to equal the original investment is

(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

We can let N = the amount of the original investment and T = the number of years it takes for the amount of interest to equal the amount of the original investment. We can create the equation:

N * 0.125 * T = N

T = 1/0.125

T = 8

Answer: E
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Farina
An investment is made at 12.5% annual simple interest. The number of years it will take for the cumulative value
of the interest to equal the original investment is

(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

12.5%*8 = 100%

IMO E
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Farina
An investment is made at 12.5% annual simple interest. The number of years it will take for the cumulative value
of the interest to equal the original investment is

(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

\(12.50\) % = \(\frac{1}{8}\)

We know, cumulative value = Principal + Interest

Now, Interest will be = Principal in 8 Years , Answer must be (E)
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Farina
An investment is made at 12.5% annual simple interest. The number of years it will take for the cumulative value
of the interest to equal the original investment is

(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

12.5%=1/8

Investment is made at Simple Interest. We need the total of interest to be 100%. That means we need 8 years to have our 100%

Answer E
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